Never have I wanted to be a charcuterie board as badly as I did on Sunday night’s season three premiere of Succession.
The aggressively funny and horny HBO series made its triumphant return after more than two years off the air, kicking off with a running and screaming start. Beginning in the immediate wake of Kendall Roy flipping the script on his media magnate father Logan Roy by exposing his misdeeds on national television, the entire episode centers around father and son doing damage control. Logan is figuring out which of his children and investors are still on his side while Kendall, drunk with power, works on assembling a team to properly combat his enormously connected father in court.
As both parties lawyer up and scream “fuck!” extremely often, it’s imperative we note that the writing this season is already proving to be even more cutting than before.
“If your hands are clean, it’s because your whorehouse does manicures,” spits Logan to his Waystar Royco crony Karl at one point.
Vicious and whip smart one-liners aside, arguably the biggest elephant in the room thus far is the questions of whether or not Gerri and Roman will finally bone. After two seasons of raw sexual chemistry, it feels as if the stage is set to bring the horniness between the pair to a full satisfying crescendo. They wound up in a hotel room alone together this week — with a gorgeous charcuterie board to presumably eat aprés sex.
Upon Logan deciding he’ll temporarily step down as CEO to ease the PR crisis he’s embroiled in, he’s deferred to his children and trusted right-hand men to tell him who should take his place. In the ultimate “mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry” move, Roman has nominated Gerri as the interim CEO and solidified his status as her slime puppy.
The nomination leads to Gerri being selected, and the sexual tension has reached its apex: She’s now officially Roman’s boss, making their dynamic suddenly spicier.
“I am quite a successful person, Roman, and I remain so by avoiding mess,” Gerri tells Roman at one point after he declares that he’ll lay her “badly,” but “gladly.”
There has not been a more foreshadowing line. Gerri, girl, we all know you’re about to embark on the mess. Just eat the gabagool and meet your subordinate Roman in the bedroom, stat. It’s what the people want.